


Leave Your Memories To Me

by Crimson_Thunder



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, I will update tags as I go, M/M, Mature for language and themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 03:37:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19939582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Thunder/pseuds/Crimson_Thunder
Summary: It's hard to predict the fallout of an event as unprecidented as an Angel and a Demon swapping corporeal forms. What was introduced as a genius idea begins to look less favourable as time wears on, viewed through regret-tinted glasses.The memories of the mind are outshone by the memories of the flesh, resulting in yet more difficult times for Crowley and Aziraphale. The hellfire in heaven and the holy water in hell meet for an explosion of steam on earth. Steam can power the largest of machines so what will it do to two mere immortals?(I'm a slow writer bear with me)





	Leave Your Memories To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one is serving as a short-ish intro into this story. The idea came to me when I realised my craving for angst had not been fully satisfied in the actual show. I love making my favourite characters suffer a bit for love, don't you?

Aziraphale had taken to sleep like he’d taken to all other human pass-times; though his body needn’t ask for the recuperating hours under the comforting weight of a duvet, his mind had other ideas. What had started as a novelty, another step in his journey into the discovery of the human condition, had become so much a routine of comfort that between the setting of the sun and the clock chiming ten he would often find himself yawning. An angel yawning is perhaps on the more peculiar side of things and Aziraphale had never been one far separated from peculiar. And though the night had progressed like so many before, tonight birthed something entirely different. Something new to the centuries-aged creature.

\----------

Behind a haze of unfocus he could see the smiles of his betters. He was coughing. Uriel’s patterned gold turned to ash on their skin, it sloughed off their once-radiant face and flitted into nothingness before them. The sight of it set another itch off in the back of Aziraphale’s throat, the particles catching Heaven’s light creating a feeling of dry so tangible he couldn’t help but try to clear his gullet. Sandalphon’s glinting teeth became fangs. Bared through lips poised to tell him how disappointed they were in him. Though their smile had never felt warm to Aziraphale before, now he found limitless heat setting into his body. His skin sticking to the cotton of his shirt and sweat pooling in the small of his back. He hadn’t sweat in years.  
Though the corners of his vision were beginning to darken, as his bright eyes settled on the face of Gabriel suddenly everything else fell away and Aziraphale could see with clarity for the first time in what seemed like a full age, of which he had seen many. It almost felt like a memory, one tucked away at the back of his mind. A memory he was not supposed to recall. A memory he was not supposed to have. The Archangel’s lilac eyes set on him like knives, a pin pressed into an explorer’s map signalling him as the destination and setting him ablaze with inadequacy and dread, and then they looked through him. This he was used to. Centuries of orders spoken at him without acknowledgement of his being. This is where Aziraphale always landed. At the end of a sentence punctuated with an insincere smile and an air of expected gratitude. And here he fell once more, his throat scratching again as he choked out his unease. Except, this time, he couldn’t recall the words Gabriel had spoken. He had become keenly aware of how damp his palms felt as his fingers knitted together to fidget. Screwing his eyes closed he tried to replay the last moments but all that came was distortion, like visual static. The rumble of the Archangel’s voice dancing around the edges of Aziraphale’s perceptions, coming through as little more than an echo heard through thick walls. His chest tightened around another bout of coughs as he strained to remember what Gabriel had been saying.  
As he slipped further from understanding Aziraphale’s vision lost clarity once more, Uriel and Sandalphon came back into view, though when he tried to centre on their faces to read what little he could from them they only slipped out of focus. His throat still never quite cleared of the agitation that persisted. The celestial rays of sun found the glinting teeth of the three angels before him as they laughed at a joke he hadn’t shared in. He looked at them as if through smoke, a fog surrounding them and keeping them cloaked. His clothes now fully clung to wherever his body touched them as he found himself so uncomfortably hot he considered removing a layer or two. All senses redirected to his own discomfort in earnest. He heard laughter in the distance but stopped caring to decipher the source; too wrapped up in this insufferable cough that he just couldn’t cure himself of and the radiating heat spread over his entire body. He felt his lungs burning from inside with how much he heaved, his eyes welling and threatening to spill over his cheeks. Wringing his hands together he found his skin slick, almost dripping. Aziraphale doubled over and for the first time saw the surface on which he was standing, scorched and decimated.  
What should have been Holy ground, clean and pure white, was covered in several inches of soot and blackened ashes. It was then that Aziraphale finally felt the flames. Surrounding him and making him unable to catch breath he didn’t need but so desperately wanted were columns of fire at least ten foot high. Hellfire. Suddenly everything fell into place and Aziraphale’s eyes widened with horror. As he opened his mouth to scream he found no sound escaped him. It was as if God knew she couldn’t save him from his fate so rendered him silent, so she wouldn’t have to hear his piercing cries as he was consumed. Aziraphale looked through the flickering fires of damnation and saw eternity stretch out before him. And then he saw the end of it, as he felt his soul begin to tear itself apart. Flames danced and curled their way up his form as he took what he knew would be his last glance at the world. And then there was darkness.

It took a few gasps of air for him to register the absence of smog in his lungs, several bunched handfuls of bedsheet to calm his flexing fingers. As he lay panting, his eyes adjusted to the lowlight of his bedroom. Though his body was very much drenched in sweat, all accompanying ailes from earlier were dissipated. The pillow beneath his head began to feel all together too much like he was being smothered again and so the angel sat upright, the cool air kissing his dampened neckline. Aziraphale had never dreamt before, though surely this would be named a nightmare, and it took several moments for the fog of images to settle themselves behind clearer, conscious thought.  
“Good Lord,” he whispered to nobody in particular, levelling the breath he didn’t need yet was so eager to enjoy now that it wasn’t accompanied by burning. Slowly Aziraphale raised his hands to his face, tracing his fingertips over his features; checking for heaven knows what. Comfort, perhaps. They didn’t find it there and so moved on; his left to the back of his neck and the right to his chest. He could sense a tremble to his digits, fear carried over to the waking world. The moonlight broke through his curtains to catch a glimmer off the ring on his bedside table. The flash of silver and gold bringing forward the picture of Sandalphon’s fang-filled grin and sending a shiver through Aziraphale’s body. His hands rushed to clasp together in front of his chest, catching himself and grounding his mind in reality. How easily his mind wanted to lose itself in the fiction of his fears. He allowed himself another steadying breath to collect his wandering thoughts and faltered when his tongue betrayed a taste of smoke. Tea. He needed a bloody good cup of tea.

**Author's Note:**

> Please hit that mf kudos and leave a comment telling me how much you don't want me to hurt this perfect angel; not that it matters, the hurt is already planned and it's gonna sting


End file.
